Moderators (requests and notices)

the fact that this discussion is happening in here is something you're taking very personally

Nope. Not at all.

I take the role of admin seriously, as a major responsibility, as a sign of trust in me to do the right thing.

It probably is the case that banning ABCNews is the right thing. But doing the right thing for the wrong reason, would make it the wrong thing.

I hold myself to high standards, and I believe that we are all prone to make mistakes. Given that there is no system that can hold me to account, I hold myself to account by requiring that I only do things on here when I have a clear authority to do so.

For most things, that's easy enough... none of you want spammers here, trolls get banned when they're too much, etc.

But when it's not obvious, I will fight to get out of people clear authority for me to ban someone.

Not the view of one or two people, not an extreme response to an otherwise petty incident. But real evidence that something is wrong, and that the only corrective that should be applied is me banning someone.

Frankly, I'm surprised that my holding myself to high standards is an issue, also that the reason I do so isn't really obvious. I'm surprised that given how I've moderated for years that it isn't pretty clear what steps people need to go through to ensure someone who is posting things that don't meet the (subjective) community standards is then banned.

The end, does not justify the means.